


Never Surrender

by Jiksa



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, M/M, Traduction en Francais, War, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 10:30:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11553327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: Alex’s brow furrows. “The war’s not over, though.”“It is for me.”





	Never Surrender

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: ["Nous ne nous rendrons jamais"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11612670) by [Lazeleh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazeleh/pseuds/Lazeleh)



> I watched Dunkirk tonight and thought about Tommy and Alex all the way home, about Alex's volatile intensity set against Tommy's shellshocked stoicism, how Alex needs so desperately to know that what he's done had some sort of _meaning_ , how the two of them become a team despite their differences. I had Some Feelings™. Unbetaed.
> 
> [Перевод на русский](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5776715) available, thanks to the lovely [PoliGreen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PoliGreen/pseuds/PoliGreen)!

Everything’s hazy after the boat docks, Tommy’s stomach turning like they’re still on the sea for hours after they’ve boarded the train taking them to their shelter for the night. Alex stays close, collecting two apples and two beers and two blankets, taking note of instructions on where to wash and where to sleep and where to meet in the morning for their next orders.

Alex keeps a firm grip on Tommy’s elbow when they’re let into the makeshift barracks, shouldering past other soldiers in his haste to find them a good spot to sleep. The building must’ve been a stable before the war, but now it’s gutted and ugly and empty like everything else the war’s ravaged. They end up in a little wooden enclosure that must’ve held a horse once upon a time, the two of them curled up on what little hay is left on the floor.

“Bit warmer than sleeping on cement,” Alex says softly, letting Tommy take the spot against the wall. Two other boys squeeze in beside them, not saying anything and not looking at them. Frogs, judging by their uniforms. They both go straight to sleep, bodies prostrate and eyes shut and arms limp by their sides. Maybe they’re just too shellshocked to do anything but lie still and feel guilty that they’re alive when their brothers across the Channel most likely aren’t, anymore. They look too much like corpses for Tommy’s liking.

He doesn’t think about Gibson.

It’s quiet, mostly, even if his ears are still ringing from the gunshots, the bombs, the screams, the waves. He can hear boots on the gravel outside the barracks, the graceless shuffle of soldiers too shattered to do anything but limp towards food and sleep and shelter.

They might have made it across the English Channel, but none of them will be going _home_ for a while yet. Not for months, perhaps not for years, perhaps not at all.

Tommy’s on his back, staring at the ceiling and too tired to close his eyes. Beside him, Alex is sitting up, still hunched over that bloody newspaper he refuses to put down.

“What’s this word, del-del-ing—” He thrusts the paper towards Tommy, pointing at the word with a grease-smudged finger. They’ve all washed since getting off the train, but neither of them could get the black oil out of their hair or out from under their nails. “I can’t read it, it’s too dark in here.”

Tommy suspects Alex possibly can’t really read it _at all_ , but he holds his tongue. “ _Deliverance_ ,” he says. “It means being set free.”

Alex lets out a huff. “I know what it fucking means.”

Tommy pulls his thin blanket closer. He’s tired, but somehow it doesn’t feel like he’s going to sleep ever again. Every time he closes his eyes he hears the bodies falling around him as he ran for his life through the streets of Dunkirk, the water exploding when the torpedo hit the destroyer, the gunshots tearing through the trawler as the enemy played target practice with their last hope of getting out of France alive.

The _enemy_ , everyone keeps saying, as though that explains why men are killing each other all across the continent. _Enemy_ , Tommy thought the first time he brought a German boy to his knees with a gun to his head, his finger shaking on the trigger as the boy pressed his palms together and pleaded, _“Gnade, gnade, gnade.”_

He didn’t need to understand German to understand. In that moment they were more alike than they were different, the two of them, both trembling like leaves on either side of a gun that neither of them wanted to go off.

Alex wipes his nose on the sleeve of his jacket and clears his throat. He’s been coughing since they first saw the cliffs on the coast of Dorset, his voice slowly going hoarse. “It says _victory_ here, next to _deliverance_ , yeah? It says we won by making it out of there, doesn’t it?”

“Sure.”

Alex nudges him. “What does it say here again?”

Tommy follows Alex’s finger and reads, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.”

“And here? This part right here.”

Tommy sighs. “Go to sleep, Alex.”

Alex shakes his head, relentless as he thrusts the paper towards him again. It's gone greasy and brown where he’s worried it with his dirty hands. “Come on, read it. It’s too dark for me.”

“We shall never surrender,” Tommy whispers, turning his eyes skyward again. The decrepit ceiling’s covered in cobwebs, translucent strands shimmering in the moonlight coming through the rotten planks. He’s never felt this tired in his life, like parts of him have died off and his head hasn’t quite realised yet. “We shall never surrender. That’s what it says.”

It still feels like the sky could spit fire at any moment.

“Never surrender,” Alex repeats, stroking his fingers reverently over the words he’s been clinging to like a life raft since Tommy read him the article on the train. “It says we’re going to win this whole fucking war? Victory and deliverance. _Never surrender._ ”

“Sure.”

Alex lies down beside him, on his side and close like he’s going to tell him a secret. “I heard one of the blue jobs say they’ll maybe send us to Africa next. Never been there, me.” He grins, his cheeks dimpling. His eyes are bright in the dim light, beautiful like explosions in a pitch black sky. “Never been anywhere, really.”

Tommy turns his head to the side, keeping his shoulders flat on the floor. Alex’s breath is warm against his jaw, damp and stale and already somehow familiar. He still smells like the ocean, like something that’s tried to kill them both and not succeeded. “Sounds like a nice place to die, I suppose.”

Alex laughs a little. “We survived Dunkirk, mate. We can make it through anything.” His gaze flits between Tommy’s eyes and then lingers for the briefest moment on his parted lips. “Maybe they’ll send us to Africa together.”

Tommy swallows, looking around to make sure they’re not being overheard. He feels the chill in the air all the way into his bones, even under his blanket. “I’m not going to Africa,” he whispers. “I’m not going back out there again. I'm done.”

Alex’s brow furrows. “The war’s not over, though.”

“It is for me.”

“You can't just— It's not gonna stop. It's gonna keep coming. Their planes'll—”

“I'm not going back out there.”

“You can’t go home,” Alex argues, his voice a hiss. “They’ll have you for desertion.”

“I’ll go somewhere else,” Tommy says, fisting his hands in the sheet. He feels dread rise inside him like ice cold salt water around his shoulders. “I don’t care. I’m not going back. I can’t.”

Alex looks at him for a long, strange moment. Tommy thinks about reaching for Alex's hand that first time, pulling him to safety before the sinking hospital ship could crush his body against the mole. He thinks about how tightly Alex held him in that trawler, how he hissed, _“Somebody’s got to get off so the rest of us can live.”_ He thinks about the way they'd looked at each other in that tiny boat crossing the Channel, soaked through and covered in oil and miraculously still alive because of each other.

“Maybe I’ll come with you,” Alex whispers finally, bringing his own blanket over Tommy's shoulders. He looks at Tommy’s mouth again, just quickly like he didn’t mean to. “I’ve never been _somewhere else_ , either.”

Tommy swallows, his heart kicking in his chest. They’re not friends, not really, but they’ve saved each other’s lives enough times that maybe they could be. “We’d have to go while it’s still dark. Someone might see us. We might not make it.”

Alex grins at him, soft and sure and still so strange. “We already made it out of Dunkirk, mate. This is nothing.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/163194999449/never-surrender)  
>     
> Title from Churchill's ["We shall fight on the beaches"](https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches) speech, which Tommy reads snippets of to Alex on the train in the last scene of the film.
> 
> [tumblr](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/jiksax) | [email](mailto:ifckfairies@gmail.com?Subject=Hey%20girl)  
> 


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